


IED

by Zinnith



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally troubled spies with unhealthy coping mechanisms, Gen, Kink Meme, Mental Health Issues, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 12:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4666893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zinnith/pseuds/Zinnith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya doesn't drink, period. Napoleon and Gaby learn one of the reasons why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	IED

**Author's Note:**

> Cleaned up and reposted from kinkfromuncle. Yes, I might be slightly obsessed with this movie in general and with hurting Illya in particular. Please bear with me.

Napoleon has never meet a Russian who drinks less than Illya Kuryakin. At first, he doesn’t think much of it, just shares an exasperated look with Gaby whenever Illya politely declines a nightcap. It takes longer than it probably should have for him to realize that Illya doesn’t drink, period.

On occasion, he’ll allow himself a mouthful of whiskey or a sip of champagne, but Napoleon has rarely seen him actually _finish_ a drink. Usually, he holds the glass for as long as the situation demands, and then unobtrusively leaves it somewhere it won’t be noticed. 

All things considered, Napoleon figures it’s just another one of Illya’s quirks. Besides, a partner who drinks too little is probably preferable to one who drinks too much, at least mission-wise. And who knows, given a little time he and Gaby might be able to do something about that giant stick lodged up Illya’s stubborn Russian ass.

It’s not until many months later that Napoleon understands just how wrong he has been about dear Peril’s drinking habits. 

* * *

It’s a milk run, a simple hand-off, so easy that it’s something of an insult to send two of the world’s best spies to take care of it. But Krupin is Illya’s contact, and he is adamant in his wish to deal with Illya and only Illya. Napoleon gets to tag along only because there is a miniscule chance that Krupin has less than honourable intentions (however honourable a former Russian surgeon living in exile in Paris and earning his daily bread by patching up various members of the underworld can be).

It turns out there was no reason to worry, at least not about Krupin’s intentions. Illya and Napoleon meet up with him in an upscale restaurant, in one of the private rooms designed especially for guests who don’t wish their conversations to be overheard, and everything is just fine and dandy so far. 

No, the problem is that Krupin decided to bring a friend of his own, and Illya’s eyes narrow dangerously the moment he spots the little man. Vasilij Egorov’s hair is going thin on top, he obviously has more money than taste, and there is something rodent-like about him. 

They all sit down, order their meal, and Krupin and Egorov immediately ask for vodka to be brought in. It’s not Napoleon’s first choice of liquor, but he accepts it anyway, knowing full well that this is how affairs are conducted in these circles.

“Something wrong with your drink, _tovarich_?” Egorov asks suddenly, staring at the untouched glass in front of Illya.

Napoleon knows a thing or two about how Russians like to party. Turning down a drink is a deadly insult. Once a bottle has been opened, you don’t stop until it’s finished. You don’t put your glass down until it’s empty, and then only to fill it anew. This really isn’t the right time for Illya to get finicky.

Thankfully, Illya decides to see reason and raises his glass with an almost resigned little sigh. “ _Na zdorovje_ ”, he says, sporting the most painfully faked smile Napoleon has ever seen, before he knocks back the vodka. 

The toast is repeated around the table, drinks are finished and refilled. Half way through the main course, Krupin excuses himself to visit the men’s room. A few minutes later, Illya does the same, and Napoleon gets the doubtful honour of entertaining Egorov while the other two men handle their exchange of information. 

Even after only a short time in Egorov’s company, Napoleon has concluded that the best word to describe him is ‘dipshit’. The more vodka he puts away, the more obnoxious he becomes.

Krupin and Illya return, just as Napoleon is beginning to make plans for how he can get away with punching the little rat of a man in his smug little face. Illya makes a subtle little motion toward his inner pocket, and that is at least one bright point. They have what they came here for. Now it’s just a matter of getting through the rest of the evening.

Krupin orders more booze. Egorov gets louder and louder. Illya’s hand begins to twitch around his glass. Napoleon decides that the best thing for everyone involved would probably be if they can get the hell out of here as soon as they can.

Then Egorov opens his mouth and lets those fateful words spill out. 

“And how is your mother, Kuryakin? It’s been some time since I last got to enjoy her company.” 

It’s accompanied by a disgustingly lecherous eyebrow waggle, and Napoleon can smell the impending disaster in the air.

The subject of Illya’s parents is a sore spot that Napoleon learned the hard way not to prod. He has a feeling that this particular establishment would not appreciate their guests throwing tables around. No, scratch that. Judging by the look on Peril’s face, he is going to murder Egorov if they have to spend another second in the same room.

So before Illya has time to do something monumentally stupid, Napoleon makes a big show of looking at his watch, declares it time to call it a night, and promptly hustles Illya out of the restaurant. He’s almost a little impressed by how smoothly he manages to pull it all off.

Illya says nothing in the cab on the way back to the hotel. Out of the corner of his eye, Napoleon can see his hand trembling. It’s not unlike sitting beside an explosive device that could go off at any time, and Napoleon decides that this is probably the kind of situation where he ought to be extremely careful about what he says and how he says it. 

Just looking at Illya, you wouldn’t believe that he’s consumed the better part of a bottle of high-shelf vodka over the course of the evening. Then again, given the size of the man, Napoleon isn’t too surprised. 

But as the cab pulls up outside their hotel and they get out, Illya, who is normally the most sure-footed man alive, sways and staggers to the side. Some misguided kind of instinct makes Napoleon reach out to steady him, but Illya throws his arm off with so much force that Napoleon almost loses his own balance. Once he's managed to regain his composure, the Russian is already stalking toward the hotel entrance.

So, it looks like Illya is drunk off his ass. This is going to be an interesting night.

* * *

Gaby has been waiting up for them. By the time Napoleon catches up to Illya, he’s already in their room. Napoleon lets himself in, trying to do his best to figure out what the hell is going to happen next. 

Illya already has his jacket off when Napoleon enters, the garment slung over the back of a chair. The man himself is standing in front of the full length mirror on one wall, head down, both hands pressed against the mirror frame. He looks like he’s barely keeping himself together. Napoleon is struck by the sudden knowledge that he needs to turn and walk out again and that he needs to take Gaby with him, preferably as soon as humanly possible.

He turns to forward this information to Gaby, but he barely has time to open his mouth before he’s interrupted by a crash and the clink of broken glass.

The mirror shatters, broken pieces raining down to the floor. Illya stands over the mess, his breathing deliberately slow and controlled. Blood is dripping from his hand where the sharp shards have dug into his skin. 

“Leave,” he says. Napoleon can’t see his face from this angle, but the tight line of his shoulders and the way the trembling and twitching have travelled from his hands to encompass his entire body speaks a language all of its own.

Gaby is late to catch on for once, and takes a step toward him. “Don’t be silly, you’re bleeding. Let me…”

“ _Leave_ ,” Illya interrupts, his voice a growl of barely suppressed rage.

If he ever was to lift a hand against Gaby, no matter how involuntarily, Illya would never forgive himself. Napoleon has no wish to clean up that potential trainwreck so he simply grabs Gaby around the shoulders and steers her out of the room, ignoring her protests. 

“What _happened_?” she asks the moment the door has clicked shut behind them.

“An unpleasant little rat of a man made some very rude comments about his mother,” Napoleon informs her. “There was also quite a lot of vodka involved. I think we’d better just stay out here for a while and wait for the storm to blow over.”

A few moments of silence follows. Then, there is a loud crash from within the room, the unmistakeable sound of heavy furniture, probably the stuffed armchair in the corner, being violently overturned. Gaby flinches and Napoleon can’t quite hold back a wince of his own. He’d rather liked that chair.

Over the next fifteen minutes, Illya seems to be doing his very best to reduce the hotel room to rubble. Napoleon and Gaby lean against the wall on either side of the door and stand there in silence, waiting for him to finish. By now, they’re all very familiar with each other’s personnel files, but knowing something and actually experiencing it for yourself are two very different things. Up until now, Napoleon thought he had a rather good grasp on Illya’s impressive anger management issues. Pushing his buttons has become something of a hobby, poking him just to see how far you can go before it’s too far. 

This is something else entirely. Something big thunders into the other side of the wall and Gaby actually jumps where she stands, letting out a startled little noise. 

Then it’s over. No more sounds of mindless destruction. Gaby glances at Napoleon, and then the closed door. 

“Should we…?” she begins, hesitating.

Napoleon just shakes his head. “Let’s give him a moment.” Who knows, this might just be a temporary lull. 

But everything is still silent on the other side of the door. Illya must’ve finally run out of steam. Either that or he simply ran out of things to break. They wait for a few more breaths before Gaby reaches out and carefully knocks on the door.

It takes a moment before a muffled, “Go away,” can be heard from within. Gaby and Napoleon exchange another glance and reach a silent agreement. Napoleon opens the door.

The scene inside is awe-inspiring. If you hadn’t witnessed it yourself, it would be impossible to guess that a single man did all this within a quarter of an hour, with his bare hands nevertheless.

There is not one whole piece of furniture left in the room. The floor is littered with broken glass, wooden splinters, upholstery stuffing. One window has been reduced to shards, the other three have miraculously survived. The drapes have been ripped from the walls, and then ripped apart. Both the heavy chest of drawers and the bed have been upended, and the coffee table has been more or less pulverized. 

Napoleon can’t help it, he has to be at least a little bit impressed. Illya’s rage has travelled through the room like a force of nature, inhuman and still somehow disastrously beautiful. 

There is, however, nothing beautiful about the drained figure who’s sitting slumped against the wall, panting with exertion, forehead pressed against drawn-up knees. Napoleon never thought he’d describe Illya Kuryakin as ‘small’, but here, collapsed in the middle of the ruin, he looks painfully vulnerable.

Illya is still in his shirtsleeves, the fabric stained here and there with blood from where his hands have been cut open. He’s drenched in sweat, and he’s still trembling slightly, more from exhaustion now than fury. 

They need to get him out of here. Someone must’ve heard the outburst of violence and called the hotel staff, maybe even the police. 

Gaby clearly has the same idea. She quickly starts to sift through the remains of the furniture, gathering up whatever of hers and Illya’s belongings she can find. . 

Illya doesn’t move as Napoleon approaches. Still with his head down, he mutters, “I told you to leave,” his accent even thicker than usual. 

“Not without you,” Napoleon says, reaching out a hand to help him up. After a small eternity, Illya takes it and makes a heroic attempt to get up without actually having to look at anything else than the floor.

He stumbles getting to his feet, worn out and more than a little drunk still. Gaby quickly moves in to steady him on the other side, and Illya turns his face away, refusing to meet her eyes. 

Napoleon’s suite is one floor down from the one Illya and Gaby have been sharing. They lead Illya into the lounge where he comes to a stop, shoulders slumped, staring down at the carpet. Gaby quickly disappears into the bathroom and Napoleon goes to pour Illya a glass of water.

“You’ll be all right, Peril,” he says when he returns, giving the man an awkward little pat on the shoulder. Really, he has no idea what to say, and judging from the look Illya shoots him, a mix of disgust and shame, self-reproach and bone-deep weariness, it clearly wasn’t the right line. Napoleon hands him the water instead, says, “Drink this, you’ll thank me tomorrow.”

Gaby’s voice comes drifting out of the bathroom. “Napoleon, where’s your first-aid kit? I can’t find anything in here!”

He goes to help her, and by the time they come out into the suite again, Illya’s lying sprawled on the bed, one long leg dangling over the edge, an arm covering his face. At least the water glass is sitting empty on the bedstand. 

Gaby rummages around in the first-aid kit for cotton and disinfectant, tweezers and gauze, and goes to sit down on the edge of the bed. Illya stirs, makes a move as if to get up, get away from her, but she holds him back.

She picks pieces of glass and splinters from his mangled knuckles. He lies immobile, with his face turned away, like he can’t bear to look at her, or maybe can’t bear her looking at him. Gaby sits bent over his hand, and when she looks up at Napoleon, her eyes have that look to them, far too old for her years. 

Napoleon decides to leave them to it. He needs to go for a walk. Clear his head a bit.

* * * 

A few hours before daybreak, the Russian ex-pat Vasilij Egorov is assaulted and seriously injured in a mugging gone wrong. There’s nothing suspicious about it whatsoever, just one of the everyday dangers of city life. He’ll live, but he’ll have to spend a few months with his jaw wired shut before he’ll be able to open his mouth again.

It’s not much, but at least it’s something. 

 

\- fin -

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt read as following: 
> 
> lets pretend for a moment that we never saw Illya drink any alcohol: the reasons Illya doesn't drink are numerous, but they mostly stem from his childhood experiences.
> 
> I wanna see how Solo and Gaby find out (at least some of) the reasons he always turns down drinks, complete with lots of comfort
> 
> ++ Bonus- Napoleon recalls Illya shaking as he pours both of them a drink before he returned his father's watch.
> 
> +++ Extra bonus- Illya has an episode whilst the others are in the room, they've seen some destruction before, but not the despair that follows- and they definitely hadn't realized how much shame he felt for being unable to control his emotions.


End file.
